A Sanrio savior would arrive not a moment too soon.

但是Sanrio的救世主卻不會這么快就誕生的。

In a closely watched ranking of Japan’s most popular characters, compiled each year using sales data by the Tokyo-based research firm Character Databank, Hello Kitty lost her long-held spot as Japan’s top-grossing character in 2002 and has never recovered.

在由東京的調查公司Character Databank完成的權威市場調查中，Hello Kitty自從2002年從日本最暢銷卡通形象的寶座上下來之后，就再也沒有重返巔峰過了。

In the latest survey, released this month, Kitty ranked a distant third, behind the leader, Anpanman, a character that is based on a Japanese jam-filled pastry and is produced by Nippon Television. The second spot is still held by the venerable game and animation brand Pokémon, owned by Nintendo.

本月公布的最新調查結果顯示，Hello Kitty僅排名第三，被前兩名遠遠甩下。排名第一的是面包超人，由日本電視臺推出，面包超人的形象是由日本的一種果醬面團而來。排第二的則是任天堂出品的經久不衰的游戲動畫人物皮卡丘。